


Honest Work

by bethagain



Series: On From Here [3]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Gen, Healing, Physical Work, Water, forest, self-care, sun - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:00:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29902839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethagain/pseuds/bethagain
Summary: It’s not the kind of work he was looking for. But it will do just fine.Part 3 of what seems to be an ongoing series, giving Din the chance to heal. We’re in a small town on a rural planet, where there’s no call for his particular skills. Where work means putting your back into it, and getting your hands dirty means actual mud.
Series: On From Here [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2129814
Comments: 23
Kudos: 32





	Honest Work

The inn has a mechanical lift. It’s a small square box that lowers on a pulley. A thin cable rises from its roof and disappears into darkness above. Din looks at it skeptically and then takes the stairs. They’re narrow and dark, the treads shallow. 

“Leave the key!” the innkeeper calls after him, as he strides across the dimly lit lobby toward the exit. 

Making an enemy of his host here is not a good idea. 

He pauses to lay the key on the counter. The dull brass shank of it clinks against its worn metal fob. There’s nothing in the room to steal, anyway. 

The town center consists of a handful of low-slung buildings, all with the same tile roofs. Din pauses at the window of a repair shop. Everything inside looks old, mechanical, un-streamlined. They’d probably know exactly how to fix up the Razor Crest, with its pre-Imperial control system and antique wiring. If there were still a Razor Crest to fix.

Next is a general store, with bolts of fabric, tools, and fresh produce all for sale together. There’s a four-legged riding beast tied outside, a simple saddle on its back. A woman is choosing meemfruit from a bin near the door. She turns to watch him walk by. 

There doesn’t seem to be a proper drinking establishment. At the end of the row is a small cafe, with a handful of tables and a bar at the back. Several of the tables are occupied. Some people on their own, some groups of adults, a couple of families. Most have plates of food in front of them. A shelf above the bar holds an assortment of liquor bottles. 

This place will have to do. 

He orders a glass of whiskey, for the sake of manners, and settles in at the bar to wait. The armor serves as its own advertisement. 

"You're not going to find what you’re looking for here."

He turns toward the voice. The words are from a grizzled man seated at a corner table. 

Din doesn’t bother answering, just squares his shoulders back toward the bar again. _Every place has someone who’s hiding. And someone else who wants them found._

The man has come over to the bar, now, and is sliding onto the stool beside him. 

_Great._

"This is not that kind of town."

"Every town is that kind of town." 

"Not here." The man signals to the waiter, who pours something from a spigot and sets it down. Tiny bubbles break its surface, making a faint sound of static. He takes a drink. "We didn't hold with the Empire. We don't hold with the New Republic. We live and let live, around here."

"Fine." Maybe if Din agrees, this man will go away.

"You try to bring somebody in, the whole town's going to stop you."

"Look," says Din, "I have no quarrel with anyone here. I'm just looking to earn a few credits."

The helmet’s interface lets him know that someone’s taken the barstool on his other side. The screen fills the gaps in his peripheral vision. It’s a woman, long hair in a braid, sleeveless top and arms of solid muscle.

“Not here,” she says.

The other tables are emptying, more townspeople coming to form a semicircle behind him. Even the children are glaring at him.

_Damn._

“All right.” He knows better than to move his hands without a warning. “Let me pay for my drink, and I’ll be on my way.” He reaches slowly for the pouch at his waist, keeping his hand well clear of his blaster. “What do I owe you?”

The bartender names a figure. Din doubles it, setting down the small stack of credits before rising to leave. 

The bartender tries to give the extra back. “That’s too much.”

“You keep it,” Din says. “Payment for the trouble.”

“Hold on.” It’s the man on the barstool beside him again. “You really just looking for work?”

Din waits, standing there by the bar. The townspeople stay there in their circle, but hands are starting to drift away from holsters. The weapons here seem to be mostly slugthrowers. Mechanical things, not blasters with their circuitry and electrics. _Interesting._

“Any kind of work?” the man asks.

There are limits, even for someone like Din. “Honest work.”

The man grins at him, white teeth flashing through his unruly beard. “You look strong enough,” he says. “If it’s not beneath you, in your fancy armor there. I need somebody to move some rocks."

The job is not at all what Din had in mind, but it does, indeed, sound like honest work. And he’s not in a place to be picky. 

He’s sitting next to the bearded man on a plank across the front of a high-wheeled wooden cart. The cart is pulled by two solid-looking beasts, four-legged and shaggy. Their pace is sedate and steady, the cart rolling easily over grassland. They’re headed toward a row of trees in a valley, between rolling hills. 

The trees mark a stream, the man says, and on that stream is an old stone dam that diverts the water. “We’re opening up new farmland. Need to get that water back in its proper course. Get it down to the right place on the land. My regular crew could do it, but it’s heavy work. They’re not itching to volunteer.”

“Why not use an antigrav lifter?” Why pay a man for a whole day’s work, when a simple machine would cut that down to a couple of hours. 

“We’re not big believers in tech around here. Parts have to be imported. Electric’s complicated to repair. We don’t care to be dependent on anyone, any more than we have to.”

That explains the shop in town, then, with its antique machinery in the window. And the hotel lift, and the drying jets that don’t work anymore.

“That’s why the slugthrowers?"

“You noticed. That’s right.” The man chuckles. “Keeps things calmer, too. If you have to forge a new bullet every time you use one, you’re a little less likely to draw.”

The cart trundles along. The sky overhead is a clear blue, the sun warm. Din nudges up the cooling system in his armor. 

They go along a little way among the trees, until they’re beside a narrow stream of clear water. It emerges from a low pile of stones at the edge of a pond. 

From his seat on the cart, the man points to a smaller valley that runs off to the right. “The pond drains over that way, now. Pull the dam out, and it’ll run the way it should again.”

Din takes in the clear stream, the small oval pond, the branching valley. “Who’s using that water now?”

“The folks over yonder were a little too friendly with the Empire,” the man says. “Town asked them to leave.”

“Did they leave?”

“I thought you bounty hunters had a rule about asking questions.”

“This isn’t a Guild job,” Din says.

“Suppose not." The man turns to reach toward the back of the cart, and Din tenses. But he’s just picking up a wooden box by its leather handle. He hands it to Din. "Here's lunch. We're not fancy but our crew eats well. Water in the stream's safe to drink. And don’t worry, there’s no one left to come bother you. ”

He waits while Din climbs down from the cart. “You could walk out when you’re done, but it's a long way after a day's work. I'll be back to get you at sundown."

Din watches the cart make its sedate way back through the trees, the shaggy beasts pulling at their traces, the man humming off-key as he goes.

He finds a flat rock to put the lunch box on. It contains a dented metal cup, a stack of wrapped sandwiches, some pieces of a fruit he doesn’t recognize, and a generous slice of cake that smells of ginger and dark sugar.

He closes the box back up again and goes over to inspect the dam.

This certainly isn’t his usual kind of work. But a ship needs fuel and a man needs food, and pushing on to the next port with just the credits he has on hand feels reckless. Unwise. Plus, being in debt to Boba Fett is like a deep itch under his skin. It’s not comfortable. He wants it gone. 

Din is no engineer, but piloting a ship means he’s used to thinking in three dimensions. He considers the shape of the dam, the way the rocks are stacked atop one another, the chinks where the water flows through. The thing looks like it was hand-built, the stones large enough not to move with the water but small enough to be picked up. The original stream cut a gully into the soil, but it’s shallow, the dam itself only a bit over knee-high. 

The forest floor here is carpeted with broad, leathery leaves. Wide-trunked trees are spaced far apart, with little undergrowth between them. Their canopies cast shade across the ground. Here and there, a few sunbeams find their way through. 

If he starts at the far side, removing the rocks in vertical columns, the stream should come slowly back to life. His gloves will protect his hands from the roughness of the stone. His boots are already sticking in the mud at the edge of the water. They’re water-resistant, good for a while in a rainstorm, but they’re going to be soaked through by the time he’s done. 

At first, muscles complain at being asked to move in ways they’re not used to. This steady pattern of bend, lift, bend is very different from the sudden, sharp quickness of a fight. His daily workouts are rigorous but they’re precise, prescribed patterns. Each of these stones has a different shape, a different weight. Keeping his feet out of the water, keeping his balance on the slight slope makes each one its own physics problem, its own little challenge.

Soon enough, though, he’s settled into the rhythm of it. He remembers to use his legs when lifting, to save strain on his back. He kicks up the cooling system again, as sweat begins to gather under the armor. 

The armor’s physiological monitors are simple, but they register heartbeat, breathing, temperature. Normally, he ignores the ping that says it might be time to take a break, to drink some water and catch his breath. Because normally, when that ping goes off, taking a break would either be desperately stupid--in the middle of a firefight?--or stupidly desperate, like during the hours walking the Tatooine desert back to Mos Eisley, carrying the wreckage of a speeder bike, no water at all on board.

This time, he gets the dented cup from the wooden box and carries it over to the stream. It’s already flowing faster, but his work has kicked up sediment. Din goes back to the box, grabs one of the wrapped sandwiches, and sets out to find the pond’s other outlet. 

It’s not far. The other stream burbles over a few rocks at the edge of the pond, then curves through another shallow gully and off down a gentle slope and away. One of the great trees rises nearby, a couple of its wide roots undercut by the water. 

He’s starting to feel chilled as the cooling system interacts with sweat-dampened clothing, so he switches the cooling circuits off. The helmet’s interface tells him the air outside is still warm. 

Din considers, sandwich in one hand, cup in the other. There is a sunbeam crossing over the tree roots, making the water sparkle.

The forest around him is quiet. 

Decision made, he dips the cup in the stream, then chooses a spot to sit on one of the wide tree roots, back against the trunk. He balances the cup on the leaf-covered ground, sets the sandwich down beside it. Then he lifts the helmet from his head, setting it in his lap as he rests his head on the tree’s rough bark, eyes closed against the brightness of the sun.

When did he last feel sunlight on his skin? It’s been a while. Before he picked up the child, surely. It hasn’t been safe to let his guard down. How long before that, though? He thinks back, but it’s a blur of work, the halls of the Nevarro covert, the streets of strange towns. 

Din knows better than to stay in the sun for long. Skin that’s always covered has no defense against UV rays. After a few minutes he shifts to the shade, sitting crosslegged on the forest floor. The water from the stream is sweet, with a slight mineral taste underneath. The sandwich isn’t bad either, fresh bread dotted with different kinds of grain, slices of some kind of tender meat and crisp green leaves with just a hint of bitter.

He makes his way back around the pond to continue the work. Wiggle each stone free. Lift, carry. He’s building a sort of stone cairn, setting each one down neatly, just because it feels good to see the thing take shape. 

His gloves are soaked by now, as he has to reach into the water to get at the lowest rows of stones. The water can’t be good for the circuits in the vambraces so he sheds those, too, setting them down on the flat rock beside the wooden lunch box, where his helmet already sits. 

He could keep the cooling system running, but it’s not designed for this kind of exertion. The constant movement will keep the power cell charged, but he’s sweating in spite of it, and the chill from the beskar is a distraction instead of a comfort. 

He’s already vulnerable without the helmet and the vambraces. He lays out cuirass, pauldrons, hip and thigh plates on that flat stone. His hand pauses on the blaster, but if it’s waterlogged it’s not going to work at all. 

He looks down at the thick fabric of the flightsuit, already wet at wrists and ankles. He's got another layer underneath it. May as well leave that too. 

He makes a detour through another sunbeam on the way back to the dam. 

Without the armor to filter the outside world, he’s aware of the warmth of the sun on his back. Of the change in temperature between sun and shadow. 

Without the helmet’s interface, he marks time by how the patches of sun creep slowly across the forest floor. 

When a rush of water takes him by surprise, soaking him from elbow to wrist and chest to hip, he sheds his shirt, laying it out on the stone cairn to dry. 

The air is still warm. The water that splashes his wrists is cool. He pauses again for food, then sets back to work. At one point he cups his hands in the running stream and drinks, then runs wet hands through his sweat-soaked hair. 

Clearing the last few stones means sinking his hands into mud to wrest them free. When he’s carried them over and set them atop the neat pile, he looks down and finds he’s covered in mud from chest to waistband. 

His employer said he’d be back at sunset. Din looks up, judging the height of the sun in the sky. Late afternoon, he guesses, edging into evening. It’s unpleasant fitting the helmet back on over wet hair, his face still damp with sweat, but he does it. The chrono built into the interface tells him there’s a good two hours until sundown. 

He turns a slow circle, heat and motion sensors overlaying his vision, sound turned up high. There’s birdsong high above him, but otherwise the forest is still. 

He fetches his shirt, piles the armor and flightsuit into his arms and carries it all to the edge of the pond. Then, thinking _what the hell_ , he shucks boots, socks, and leggings and wades on in. 

Din doesn’t know how to swim. It’s not a skill he normally needs in his work. It’s not a skill he particularly needs now, either. But the mud is pleasantly soft against his feet, the water soothing to tired muscles. He ducks his head under, scrubs at the dirt on his chest, rinses away sweat. 

For the second time today, he uses his shirt to dry off. The approach of evening is bringing a slight chill to the air, so he pulls his other clothes back on, fastening the flightsuit over his bare chest this time before setting the pieces of his armor in place. 

Back at the flat stone he considers another sandwich, decides on the cake instead, and then sits there a while, licking sugar from his fingers and watching the stream at its full strength now as it sparkles its way down the valley. 

True to his word, the man is back with the wagon just as the sunbeams finish fading. He takes note of the neat cairn, and of the unfettered stream. “I wasn’t sure you’d really do it,” he says. “Guy like you. Work like this.”

Din just looks at him, impassive behind the helmet. He’s pretty much done with dignity these days, but this man doesn’t need to know it. 

“Well,” the man says. “We’re clearing more land tomorrow. If you want another day’s work.”

“I’ll take my pay for this one.”

“Of course.” He counts out the amount they agreed on and drops it into Din’s hand. “I mean it. We can always use a strong set of hands.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Where are you staying?”

Din names the inn. 

The man nods. “I’ll drop you there?”

“That would be fine.”

The first stars are out by the time Din steps down from the wagon, credits in his pocket and the last two sandwiches in his hand. He picks up the key from the innkeeper, climbs the narrow stairs, locks the door of the room behind him. He hangs his wet shirt in the shower room, lays out his wet gloves and socks to dry, strips off the armor and sets it carefully on the floor. His skin smells faintly of mud and minerals, but he can’t be bothered to shower. He sits by the window to eat, watching more stars emerge from the clear, dark sky. 

The money in his pocket won’t buy much. It’s a little more fuel, another day or two of getting by. 

He’ll leave in the morning. Probably. 

He still has no idea where to go.


End file.
